tushanshu_logs | ( closed )

The next person he promised to talk to was Zatanna. He shows up a little randomly, if he’s honest, but she did promise.

He grins involuntarily at the thought of the imaginary ‘NO WALLYS ALLOWED’ sign and very nearly calls out from near her door before he catches sight of Jack’s door, and he frowns. Something the kedan mentioned earlier weighs on him. He’d thought it was inocuous at first, but it had stubbornly stayed with him throughout his conversation with Dick.

There was something in the snow. It made us feel... different.

He finds himself going over to the door and staring at it. When in doubt, ask, right?

‘Jack? You in?’

Jack was indeed in his suite, playing with a few ideas for ice lures to show Finnick. Ever since he'd given the man a lump sum of his juulan to help fund the start up of Finnick's fishing business, he had been experimenting with what kinds of ice that he could create that held up best to the ocean's salt water. It was fun in an oddly repetitive way, something that seemed unusual that would hold his attention.

When he heard Kyle's voice at his door however, Jack was glad for the distraction. He bounced to his feet, leaving the tray of lures and the washtub of fresh ocean water he'd flown out to the shell's edge to collect early that morning and opened the door with his habitual grin.

"Hi Kyle!"

'Hey.' He lifts a hand to wave, but it falls back to his side without much movement. Kyle's not usually good at disguising his feelings, and the impassive expression on his face is a combination of watchful distance and doubt. He steps in and shuts the door behind him.

Might as well get right to it. 'Did you put something in the snow?' His voice is sharp, full of barely-contained anger.

Edited 2013-03-18 10:30 (UTC)

For a fleeting, absurd moment Jack thinks that Kyle means the ice lures he was just working on and his gaze slides back to them but when it returns to the Lantern, the man's expression is still distrustful and Jack feels something uncomfortable coil in his stomach.

"In the... you mean that weekend? Kyle, what's wrong? Are you all right?"

He repeats the question, flatter, colder. 'Did you put something in the snow, Jack? That made people act differently?'

His fist is not clenched, not yet.

The winter teen opens his mouth to respond, then gives the question its proper thought to figure out what Kyle is talking about and it does come to him,

"There's magic in it," he answered slowly. "I mean, I dropped four feet of perfect snow -- overnight, in March, on a city that's had barely any winter to speak of -- of course there's going to be magic in it."

But it was the last line that made him blink up at Kyle, blue eyes almost rounded at the tone and unsure why. He felt like he was in North's workshop all over again, and the big man was talking about tacks of brass and demanding to know what Jack's center was and he didn't know what was going on.

"There's magic in the snow that lets people have fun."

There's magic in it. echoes in his mind. He'd been an idiot for not noticing sooner - there'd been no clouds and no indication of snow, and then suddenly a snow day?

Don't try to use magic on me, even for pranks. Kyle had warned Zatanna. It won't work.

Kyle usually doesn't try to be threatening, but he's angry. The air crackles as the ring gears up in response. If anything had affected him—

'What do you mean, it lets people have fun? You manipulate their emotions?'

"What? No!" The denial is quick, reflexive but Jack feels the tension in the room climbing like ozone before a lightning strike.

"It just gives people a... a little help, when they might not realize they can have some fun. It doesn't make them do anything they don't want to," he fumbled for a reply that sounded coherent, at least as much as explaining something for the first time could be.

His hands fluttered nervously at his sides, fingers curling in the familiar but absent shape of the wooden staff but it was across the room. He didn't need it, hadn't reached for it when the knock and greeting came, because it had been Kyle.

Power, power like that and the spirit doesn't even know how to use it. The quick denial angers Kyle further. His fist clenches, and he moves forward, closer, his gaze steel. 'What kind of help?'

"It just does," Jack answered. A tense weight had settled across his narrow shoulders but he forces himself to stand his ground even when Kyle takes a threatening step towards him, fist balled.

"Makes it so they can push the bad things to the back of their mind, just for a little while, so they can actually enjoy something they want to do!"

He hadn't meant to raise his voice at the end but he felt trapped. "Why are you angry? I haven't done anything wrong!"

The first statement is flat: 'Makes them.'

The second is is not: 'How can they want to do it if it makes them?' He's all up in Jack's personal space now, left index finger jabbing accusingly into the centre of the spirit's chest. 'Do you realise what you've done? You have the power to affect people like that, you make them do things without their full consent, and you don't even know how it works?'

Edited 2013-03-18 12:26 (UTC)

"I don't make them!" Jack repeats, stronger this time and he reaches up to push Kyle's hand away. "I can't control people, Kyle! Even if I could, I wouldn't!"

The temperature around them is dropping a few degrees at a time, the normally colder air of his suite taking on a distinct chill now.

"It just gives them the chance! And maybe if people around here weren't always so angry and secretive and controlling all the time, none of you would have needed the help!"

The green forcefield immediately spreads over Kyle's body to protect him from the cold, and his ring begins to spark and sputter before it starts smoking. Jack's first statements rolls off Kyle and the second one hits him like a bag of bricks. Couldn't control people, huh? What about that, then? Needing help?

'None of us need it in the first place! You want to feel like a puppet, made to do something because somebody else thinks it's best for you? Hell no. We can do it of our own free will or not at all!'

"I can't make people do something they don't want at all!" The air becomes suddenly dry and full of static, all the water vapour suddenly frozen out of it, the third repetition finally sparking a reaction that's not entirely defensive. "Get that through your head!"

Hoarfrost lances out across the wooden floor, coiling into the knots in the tree's rings that made up the floor. "And if you're all so satisfied with the things are, then why are you all so miserable inside most of the time!"

The ice on the floor glows as green light spreads through it, interlacing with the crystals, forcing them to crack and split. Kyle's eyes have turned a pupil-less green. 'You know who you sound like? Everyone who's ever tried mind-control. It starts with "oh hey wouldn't you be happier if I just nudged you to do this? It can't be wrong! You wanted to do it!"'

You know who you sound like? The man who broke me - who broke my will. It can't be wrong, Kyle. You wanted to kill them - hurt them. Didn't you?

Green chains circle Jack and tighten around him, binding the spirit's limbs to his body. 'You keep this in mind - my ring can hurt spirits just as badly as it can hurt people. Next time, I am not going to be so lenient.'

Jack tried to thrash but the chains kept him from moving at all. They felt warm, not uncomfortably so at that moment but enough so that he took notice and the threats are no longer implied but explicit, spoken aloud. My ring can hurt spirits just as badly as it can hurt people.

"It's not the same!" he yelled, squirming against the binds. "You had fun! You had a good time with your friends and they with you! That wasn't fake! Why are you trying to wreck it!?"

It's exactly the same! he nearly roars, remembering the feeling of limbs moving without his consent, constructs forming, the fear in his friends' eyes—

'I could have done that fine by myself!' he thunders. 'I didn't need help of any kind, and certainly not from you!' He lifts Jack further off the ground and the chains begin to heat up. 'You have all that power, and you abused it!'

Kyle, says John's voice. That's enough. You've made your position clear. Step away.

He's shaking with rage, but the chains dissolve and the glow on the floor fades, although the forcefield doesn't dissolve.

'I'm watching you.'

Edited 2013-03-18 13:51 (UTC)

Jack sucks in a sharp breath, a combination of Kyle's shout, the sudden sting of unwelcome heat as the chains tighten against his flesh and the words that were spoken. For a fleeting second they weren't in Kyle's voice but Damian's ("I'll be watching... I am concerned about you abusing your superior abilities. And way too many potential victims who don't suspect, here.") before he flinches at the barbed words ("...certainly not from you!") like he's expecting a blow to follow.

It doesn't come and the eldritch restrains are suddenly gone and Jack's gaze flicks up to Kyle only to wish that he hadn't, glimpsing the furious scowl and he wants to say something but the green glow seems to have swallowed everything up. But he can't leave it like this, he has to-- he should--

Except Pitch's voice is there again too, oily and knowing and You're Jack Frost, you make a mess wherever you go until it silences anything he could dredge up and so he stands, posture pulled in closed and betrayed, one arm hanging limply by his side while the other crosses his chest to grasp it, not meeting the Lantern's eyes.

He doesn't stay. He's too angry, and he doesn't trust himself to remain in the same room as Jack for long. He shuts out all the signs of the spirit's distress, which would have spurred him to offer comfort.

He can manipulate my emotions. He is an enemy.

Kyle strides over to the door and slams it shut behind him.

( closed )

WO-3A; closed to jack frost

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TW torture, possession

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